Muromachi turned sword making into an industry: the uchigatana rose with massed infantry warfare, Osafune and Seki produced bundle swords beside custom orders, and the Ming trade carried Japanese blades abroad by the tens of thousands.
NihontoWatchNihontoWatchThis piece is a well-preserved dagger equipped with a koshirae. The blade is fully polished and very clean, but the width of the blade is slightly narrower due to several polishing processes. This may possibly be a sign of actual use. The hada on the blade is very visible and the itame is very active. Hataraki such as chikei and yubashiri can also be seen. The thin suguha hamon is returned in a large round shape. The name Hiroyoshi is engraved on the nakago. Hiroyoshi was a leading swordsmith in Hoki-no-kuni (present-day Tottori Prefecture) and is said to have been a disciple of Tsunahiro of Soshu-den. For this reason, his style is reminiscent of the Soshu and Bizen styles, and Hiroyoshi clan was active from the Muromachi period to the early Edo period. In particular, Yagyu Munenori, a feudal lord in the early Edo period who was also a swordsman and advocate of the Katsujinken and a military instructor of the Tokugawa family, is said to have used Hiroyoshi's swords and was a renowned swordsmith from that time onwards. The koshirae is equipped with a koshirae for the tanto, with metal fittings and scabbard lacquering that give it a taste of the period. The scabbard, also equipped with a kozuka, is speckled with engi and black and has a textured appearance. Only Tozando can offer this tanto set at this price. Buy yours fast before it sells out! Blade length: 25.0 cm Curvature: 0.1 cm Number of Mekugi hole: 2 Motohaba: 23.6 mm Motokasane: 6.0 mm Signature: Hiroyoshi(front) Era: Koto Structure: Hira-zukuri, Iori-mune Jigane: Itame Hamon: Suguha Boshi: O-maru Weight(blade only): 160 g Nakago: Ubu Original Registration No.: Tottori 14143 Please contact us if the katana you are looking for is not listed here.
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Hoki Hiroga (Mita Gorozaemon line) · Hoki · around 1532-1565
Fujishiro Jo saku · Tōken Taikan top 37%
1 piece on the market now
Hiroga (広賀) of Hoki Province, who signed himself Mita Gorozaemon no Jo, left a tanto dated the first month of Tenbun 2 (1533) with the inscription on its mune that it was made at sixty-one years. The published sources take that date as the oldest in his work[[c:1]] and the stated age as good material for the study of the smith. He is transmitted as a pupil of the Sagami smith Tsunahiro[[c:2]], and his house is placed in a larger history: the Hiroga name arose in Hoki around the Bunmei era and continued into the shinto period, divided between the Doso-o house, which forged at the Kajimachi of Kurayoshi, and the Mita house, which began with this Gorozaemon no Jo of Tenbun, lived at Tsuwara and later moved between Tsuwara and Kurayoshi. Among the several smiths of the name, those signing Mita Gorozaemon no Jo are judged especially skilled (見田五郎左衛門尉と銘するものが特に上手である), and Hoshu Hiroga is set beside Wakasa Fuyuhiro as a representative San'in smith of the late Muromachi period.
The published sources describe his work as two manners. Hiroga, they write, has a Soshu-like manner and a Bizen-like manner[[c:3]], and another paper finds both the late Soshu and the late Bizen flavor in a single katana. The Soshu side is a large gunome-midare, opening at the waist and in places double-structured, with choji-ashi and yo, the nie strong, tobiyaki entering frequently until the temper becomes hitatsura, with sunagashi and a little kinsuji. Its boshi runs deep and ichimai-like, turning back far and continuing into muneyaki. The Bizen side is calmer: a broad suguha-cho with gunome, ashi and yo, ko-nie and sunagashi, the boshi straight and round with a deep return.
Beneath both lies a tightly forged ko-itame with fine ji-nie, on one katana an itame with mokume and chikei and a faint whitish utsuri, on another a ji mixed with jifu. The published sources find in the school's ji and ha a rustic flavor, and add that some steel has a dark cast in its color, which is a point of interest of this school[[c:4]]. The katana are shinogi-zukuri with sakizori and an extended chu-kissaki, one high in the shinogi with deep sori, another with koshizori and funbari. The Tenbun tanto is a thick, wide hira-zukuri with a receding fukura, the yoroi-doshi shape, its suguha-based temper strong in nie with kuichigai-ba at the waist, carved with koshi-hi and gomabashi.
His work is dated and long-signed. One Juyo paper gives his dated span as roughly Tenbun 5 to Genki 3, while the tanto of Tenbun 2 stands before it; the katana carry Eiroku 1, Eiroku 4 and Eiroku 8, the last made for a patron at Hiromine in Harima and long dedicated at the shrine there, which the text gives as the reason its nakago is somewhat worn. A tanto of Eiroku 11, recorded in Honma's inventory of the Imperial collection, takes his quiet side furthest: a straight suguha with a small notare at the habaki and a tight nioiguchi, which its text calls rare work for a school that favored gunome and also made hitatsura. The same inventory gives the first Hiroga as a Tsunahiro pupil who went to Kamakura in the Tenbun years, and makes Mita Gorozaemon his pupil and the founder of the Mita line. One katana under this name, signed Hakushu ju Hiroga saku in the Soshu manner, is judged somewhat older than the Eiroku Gorozaemon and probably the Hiroga the directories put in Bunmei.
The published sources compare him with his contemporaries rather than with his teacher. The Eiroku 1 katana is called outstanding within his work, in no way inferior to the work of the Sue-Bizen school of the same age[[c:5]], and precious as a typical uchigatana of the Muromachi period. The Eiroku 8 katana is said to share the manner common to its time, close to Bizen Kiyomitsu, Wakasa Fuyuhiro and Bungo Munekage. What sets his own blades apart in that company is what the texts record of them: tobiyaki passing into hitatsura on the Soshu side, and the dark, rustic jigane under both manners.
Fujishiro grades him Jo saku, and the Toko Taikan values him at 400. Six designated works stand on record: five Juyo, none yet raised to Tokubetsu Juyo, and the tanto of the Honma inventory. A signed naginata in the koto research data, not a designated work, is recorded as passing from Ukita Hideie to the Maeda. Of all his blades, the Juyo katana are what a collector may realistically meet, and they appear on the market only from time to time.
Where Hiroyoshi stands among comparable artisans: across all of nihontō, and within tradition, era, and period. The tiers (Foremost · Leading · Major · Notable) weigh official designations from the NBTHK and Japan's Agency for Cultural Affairs, together with historical honors of lasting repute such as the Sansaku and Meibutsu-chō.
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Years he was demonstrably active, proven by signed-and-dated blades
Wakimono · Hoki
Phase: Sue-Hoki末伯耆· 1334–1600
4 pieces on the market now
Where Ko-Hoki belongs to the dawn of the curved blade under Yasutsuna and the Ohara circle, Sue-Hoki names the province's late continuation, the smiths of Hoki who worked through the closing phase of the Muromachi period rather than its founding age. The setsumei gather this later body around a few documented lines. Chief among them is the Hiroyoshi (広賀) name, also read Hiroga and Hiroka, which the records first place around the Bunmei era (1469 to 1487) and carry on into the shinto period across several generations. That line is transmitted as descending from Tsunahiro of Sagami: the first Hiroyoshi is said to have gone down to Soshu Kamakura during the Tenbun era and, his study completed, returned home, after which the name divided into two houses, the Mita and the Doso. To these the commentary adds Yukikage of the Inaba ko-kaji (dated Choroku 2/1458) and Morihiro of the Sainoo group at Kurayoshi, placed around the Tensho era. The published sources rank Hiroga, with Wakasa Fuyuhiro, among the representative makers of the San'in region in this period. The setsumei describe a style that has moved away from the dark, open, archaic register of the Ohara masters toward the shared idiom of late-Muromachi production. The construction is the uchigatana of the age: shinogi-zukuri with sakizori and an extended chu-kissaki, the jigane a tightly forged ko-itame with ji-nie rather than the large, conspicuously standing itame of Yasutsuna.
The records read the hamon as belonging to two manners. One is the late-Soshu approach, with large gunome-midare, tobiyaki developing into hitatsura, and thickly gathered nie; the other follows late Bizen. A suguha base mixed with gunome and choji recurs across the Hiroyoshi blades, and one tanto's explanation notes that the school specialized in gunome and hitatsura, so that a suguha work stood as a rarity. The setsumei place this output close in feeling to Sue-Bizen Kiyomitsu, Wakasa Fuyuhiro, and Bungo Munekage, situating Sue-Hoki within a standardized San'in current rather than the singular provincial vigor of the older phase. For kantei the commentary fixes the distinction differently than it does for Ko-Hoki. Where the ancient phase is held apart from old Bizen by its dark, open steel, the later Hoki blades are read against their late-Muromachi neighbors and against finer work: the Morihiro katana is described as approaching the impression of an old niji Kunitoshi and as a piece that might be mistaken for a superior (joko) smith's hand. The signing habits anchor identity, the long mei giving residence and the Mita or Doso house, with dated examples from Tenbun through Eiroku and into the Tensho era. Provenance is recorded at the modest scale of the working blade: one Eiroku 8 katana was made for a patron of Banshu Hiroto and long dedicated to Hiroto Shrine, the roughened nakago attributed to its years in that keeping. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Yasutsuna安綱 | 987-1150 | 32 |
| Sanemori眞守 | 1175-1199 | 18 |
| Kunimune國宗 | 1150-1220 | 9 |
| Sadatsuna貞綱 | 1184-1185 | 19 |
| Hiroyoshi廣賀 | 1532-1565 | 6 |
The Muromachi period (1392 to 1573)
Muromachi turned sword making into an industry: the uchigatana rose with massed infantry warfare, Osafune and Seki produced bundle swords beside custom orders, and the Ming trade carried Japanese blades abroad by the tens of thousands.
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